High Performance Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries with Optimized Electrode Configuration and Membrane Selection

The performance of a vanadium flow battery with no-gap architecture was significantly improved via several techniques. Specifically, gains arising from variation of the overall electrode thickness, membrane thickness, and electrode thermal treatment were studied. There is a trade-off between apparent kinetic losses, mass transfer losses, and ionic resistance as the electrode thickness is varied at the anode and cathode. Oxidative thermal pretreatment of the carbon paper electrode increased the peak power density by 16%. Results of the pretreatment in air showed greater improvement in peak power density compared to that obtained with pretreatment in an argon environment. The highest peak power density in a VRB yet published to the author's knowledge was achieved at a value of 767 mW cm −2 with optimized membrane and electrode engineering.